Talk:Districts of Japan

Though

many "Gun"s got merged into "Shi"s, they are not (yet) extinct (example). --Ro- 13:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Since when did this happen when the "Shi"s didn't belong to the "Gun"s? jlog3000 (talk) 14:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Translation of gun (郡)

Hello. I suggest that translation of gun (郡) should be ‘county’ rather than ‘district’.

1. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism uses this term. 地名等の英語表記規程 (p.5)
2. The word ‘district’ is sometimes used for a translation of gaiku (街区) or chōchō (町丁), which is much smaller than gun (郡). This ambiguity can be confusing. —Chiro08 (talk) 10:38, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree that "county" is a better translation. Minato Mirai has 67 gaiku, which should be translated as districts. We should abide by that MLIT regulation. Also, gun (郡) in Japan are totally different from school districts or electoral districts. Shinkansen Fan (talk) 18:45, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 22 January 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 18:18, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

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Districts of Japan → Counties of Japan – According to the MLIT rules for translation of Japanese place names, Gun(郡) should be translated as "county" rather than district. Shinkansen Fan (talk) 19:42, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: Please link to these MLIT rules you reference. Also, on Wikipedia, we go by the most common name, not by what some rules somewhere say, even if they are official government rules. I will say, in all the various Japan-related books and articles I've read, "district" is—by far—the most common way I've seen "-gun" translated. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:02, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

— Relisting. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 23:24, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: MLIT rules. 第１４条 郡名の英語表記は、置換方式によるものとする。表音のローマ字表記の Gun を County にして表記するものとする。 Translation: Article 14: The English notation of the county name shall be by the replacement method. Gun in the Roman alphabet of the phonetic notation shall be written as County. Hvn0413 (talk) 02:49, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: changing the standard from "district" to "county" would affect hundreds of articles - the title of every article on a Japanese -gun, and additionally every single one that mentions districts in Japan. Is RM really the appropriate place to discuss this? -- asilvering (talk) 08:50, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: "Districts" vary greatly in size, and I think this ambiguity is the cause of confusion. Yes, this is a big change. I posted this request to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan, but there is no response yet. "Districts" would have multiple meanings, like municipality groups (郡), school districts (ja:学区), electoral districts（選挙区）or financial districts (金融街). We would have difficulty translating these topics from Japanese. For example, Sapporo is divided into five electoral districts in the List of districts of the House of Representatives of Japan#Hokkaidō (8 block seats). Needless to say, this division ignores 郡 borders in the past. FYI, in the Administrative divisions of South Korea, they use "county" for 郡 (gun) and "district" for 區 (gu), which would be "ward" in Japan. Shinkansen Fan (talk) 16:21, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Some of us came from WT:JAPAN, and the discussion is happening here. There's no need to respond there since we're having the discussion here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 16:42, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I added this PDF to Japanese place names as an external link. My understanding is that these MLIT rules are guidelines rather than regulations. I think we need such guidelines for Japanese place names. Shinkansen Fan (talk) 16:38, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose until and unless it can be shown that "county" is the most commonly used method in reliable English-language sources (per my comment, above). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:19, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Also, we have WP:JPPLACE, which has been in place for many years. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 21:25, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose as Nihonjoe says... FWIW, I don't think either word is a particularly good choice. "County" might seem appropriate in comparison with the US, where "counties" are the subdivisions of the major divisions of the country (i.e. the states); but the original "counties" in the UK are themselves the major division, thus much more like ken. "District" is not a particularly good choice, simply because it is very vague as has been pointed out. But changing this would need a major discussion, and a persuasive majority of English-speaking sources showing that "county" is widely used. The MLIT "rules" should be ignored; they are Japanese-language rules for what to write on road signs, maps, and similar. Some of their suggestions are sensible, others are ridiculous (e.g. Iss for 諸島). Another point is that these are no longer administrative districts (since 1926 or something), and moreover are disappearing. When Sano, the town, or so-called "city", where I live swallowed up the neighbouring villages (or so-called "towns") of Kuzū and Tanuma, which formed a Asō-gun, the latter simply disappeared. I might try to find a signpost marking the boundary of a gun, but I wager it will not say "County", but will be abbreviated to the point of incomprehensibility - that's how it works. Imaginatorium (talk) 18:34, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you for this clear expression of the problem with "county". It was bothering me for this reason but I didn't quite manage to think it out myself. -- asilvering (talk) 18:51, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.